


As True A Friend

by 1f_this_be_madness



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: A Feast For Crows spoilers - Freeform, And I want them to spend more time together, F/M, Gen, Takes place about two thirds of the way through A Feast For Crows, This story was written because I love Jaime and Brienne's friendship SO MUCH
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-15 02:22:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7202444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1f_this_be_madness/pseuds/1f_this_be_madness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brienne of Tarth is working to restore Jaime's honour by locating Sansa Stark. She finds her way on the road to Riverrun in the hopes of finding the girl there, and runs into, of all people, Ser Jaime Lannister.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Meeting

Brienne of Tarth meets up with Jaime Lannister on the road outside Harrenhal when he is on his way to Riverrun. There he is trying to mend fences and minimize the damage that his family has done, and she is still searching for Sansa. She spots him, still suited in his Kingsguard white cloak, and feels a leap of gladness in her heart—though she little expects the same reaction from the knight since she has not yet fulfilled her promise to him.

Yet the Kingslayer smiles when he sees her. “We meet again, wench,” he says fondly. “I cannot say I am not glad to see your oxlike form this day.” Brienne bows her head.

“Ser Jaime, I have not yet done my part to secure and protect the lady Sansa. For that—” He rolls his eyes heavenward and stops her with a raised hand. Or stump, as it were.

“I do not chastise you, Brienne. I know you are still searching. I do wonder, though, if you are gladdened to see me at all. Perhaps those japes in my greeting were too much?” Jaime pauses, waiting for a courteous reply, perhaps; or for her to tell him that yes, his japes were too much; but Brienne does not have either of those to give him. What she DOES have are all her dreams and hopes and memories; and these come upon her so strong that she steps—nearly leaps—forward and lifts him up in a fiercely tight hug.

Jaime is both touched and stunned. He did not think the wench—Brienne—had it in her to show him such affection. But he welcomes it gladly, patting her broad back with his left hand and burying his face in her long thin ash-pale hair. Brienne grips Jaime tighter and her own face falls onto his shoulder. After a seeming eternity of this spectacle, Jaime clears his throat and speaks quietly through her hair. “Brienne, please, would you mind setting me down now?” Her head snaps back as if his words had shot through her like an arrow, and her cheeks begin to burn red as Tyrell roses beneath her astonishing blue eyes.

“I am sorry, Jaime. I should not even have PRESUMED to greet you in that way. I-I am glad to set you down.” She does so very gently, so as not to jar his stump with sharp movements. He could kiss her for that—if he was not Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, of course. But he does assure the girl—woman—that she did not presume too much.

“Are we not friends, my lady?” She freezes, as if expecting his words to be a jest, to stab and shiver and break inside her like all those cruel compliments and promises from the knights surrounding Renly; but when she sees that these are not in jest, they are sincere—the brightest, most beautiful of smiles makes her features nigh unrecognizable.

“Aye, ser. I would say that friends we are.” Jaime sighs in relief.

“Good. Glad it’s settled that I have at least one true friend. You had me slightly worried.” His tone is now playful but his eyes are still earnest. He has no other friends, Brienne realizes. I do not know why that should surprise me, but it does. Maybe because I know he is not the man he used to be, but others cannot see it. Yet he IS changed, and not only because of the beard on his face or the way he wears his white cloak. It is something…more. Yet she cannot put her finger on it, even when riding beside him after first introducing him to Podrick Payne, who he receives rather well, given the fact that this boy was Tyrion’s squire. Mayhap that is why he receives him well, she thought, because, despite all accounts and reasons to the contrary, Jaime still loves his little brother. Brienne finds herself esteeming him still more upon recognizing that. But she cannot say it; not in the least because no doubt he would laugh and deny it—or worse, he would be angry with her for suggesting so, and Brienne never wants to see Jaime angry—truly angry—at her.

This thought returns when she spies Red Ronnet among the Kingslayer’s men. He sees her as well, that she knows. Her face grows cold and stomach knots and lurches upon seeing him. She remembers that red rose…how she wanted to smash it and her fist through his cruel unchivalrous face. He is worse for wear now, though—as if someone else had done the thing she wished she had the courage to do. He has a purpled swollen eye, a bloody cut upon his cheek, and when he speaks to a knight beside him, Brienne can tell he’s missing teeth. “Who did that to him?” she asked Jaime when he noticed where she was looking. His face had turned to stone. “I would it had been me, though I would have been far less kind.” The stone cracked and Jaime smiled.

“I know you would, and have every right to. Rest assured, Brienne, that was done in your name.” He rides on ahead, leaving her fumbling with her words stuck in her throat. Had JAIME been the one to disfigure that man? For HER? It must be so; how else would he know? Brienne digs her heels into the sides of her mare, and as the horse trots on, the rider continues to wonder.


	2. A Dinner

That night they take supper together—Jaime’s squires and Podrick all serve Brienne and she feels a proper lady knight in a long blue velvet surcoat that hangs much like a dress and matches her eyes. Jaime asks about her journeyings as he sips wine with his new hand of gold and mother-of-pearl. He still makes jokes at her expense, but just as many at his own—especially after almost upending a bottle of wine.

“How is life in the Kingsguard?” Brienne asks him wistfully. She was part of Renly’s Rainbow Guard less than a fortnight, and that had ended in ruin and disaster, but she considered her job protecting Renly to be the core of her life. Yet it has slipped away now. It seems so long ago. She shakes herself out of her mind to hear Jaime speak.

“Well, no one has yet tried to poison Tommen, but that is because he rules in only name. It is my sweet sister to whom the realm belongs right now, and woe to those who oppose her—any and all. She is the reason I have come to Riverrun, after all.” Jaime gulps some wine. “I was banished from King’s Landing for balking her.” He has perhaps said too much, but being with this woman always loosened his tongue. It was in the baths that he told her about Aerys, he does remember. But still, best not to drink any more wine now.

He is confiding in me, Brienne realized. Just as he did that night in the bath, when he looked half a corpse and half a god. She feels herself begin to blush, but luckily Jaime does not notice. If he had, she would most likely never hear the end of it. but the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard is lost right now in the state of the seven kingdoms. And no doubt worried about his sister as well. “Do not fear, Jaime,” Brienne says hesitantly. “You will be able to return to the Landing to keep her and your king safe. Ser Brynden the Blackfish will not refuse to treat with you. He is a man of honour.”

“And what of me?” Jaime laughs bitterly. “Look at me, Brienne. I am a kingslayer, a cripple, a father of bastards. I have made so many mistakes.”

“As have I,” she fires back. “Yet you still gave me the chance to fight you in the marshes, to hear why you killed Aerys, to help you in your final chance for honour.” She draws out the Valyrian steel blade that he gave her and lays it across the table. “Look at this sword, ser. You named it Oathkeeper and entrusted it to me to protect Lady Sansa. That is not the act of someone without honour.” Brienne bows her head and continues quieter,”And I shall not fail you or your mandate, Jaime Lannister. I swear it.”

The Kingslayer looks at her, his apple-green eyes as warm and thoughtful as she has ever seen them. They are not the jesting eyes of an untrusting man, but instead the grateful gaze of a forlorn friend in need of reassuring counsel. He reaches out and takes her hand in his, saying quietly, “I would never have believed it, but you, Brienne of Tarth, have made me fortified. Thank you, friend.” Brienne blushes again but keeps her eyes on his.

“I-you are welcome, ser.” At last he lets go of her and takes hold of the sword’s hilt instead, his eyes scouring every inch of the blade.

“So, you have used it.” Jaime says, and scoffs at his friend’s surprise, adding, “I have been a knight since the age of fifteen, Brienne, and have seen the swords of many men before, during, and after battle. And I should like to know this one has been of use. Who did you kill, Brienne?” She wipes her now-sweaty palms on her dress coat.

“It was Pyg and Timeon and the fool Shagwell, my lord.” His eyes have widened and he grows extremely still.

“How? Tell me.” So she tells the story, ensuring that young Podrick also has his due for helping her in the fight. Jaime nods at him before leaning back with a sigh as Brienne told how she cut off Timeon’s hand and said ‘this is for Jaime.’ He remained silent for a while before “Thank you for that.” To Pod: “And you, young ser, were most gallant.” Now it is the boy’s turn to blush beet-red and stammer out,

“N-no, my lord. It was my lady—ser—who d-did the d-deeds. I only threw a rock.”

“Two, it sounds like,” smiles Jaime. “I thank you for that, Podrick, for it spared the life of my friend.” He slides Oathkeeper across the table and back to Brienne before leaning forward and staring her in the face. “And now, Brienne, since you did us both that kindness, I shall tell you what happened to Ronnet, as I’m sure you wish to know.” She starts and rises from the table.

“Jaime, I-that man means naught to me; I do not wish to speak of him.” Jaime reaches out and grabs her arm.

“Then just listen. He hurt you, Brienne. I know the way he hurt you, with the rose and the betrothal—” She tries to pull away, but he only grips her tighter. “Names he called you. Terrible as mine were. He had no right to speak those words about a highborn lady. I told him so after hitting him with this.” He raises his golden hand. “I told him to call you by your name, as befits a lady of standing. And I will send him away so that he may no longer profane my host with his presence.” From his goblet Jaime takes a final swig. “I thought that was a thing you needed to know.” Tears are rolling down Brienne’s cheeks, even as she fights against them, fights to control her face and stop this woman’s weakness. But Jaime doesn’t say a word in jest. He simply puts down his wineglass and is handed a handkerchief by one of his squires. Then he leans in and dabs at her cheeks as gently as he can, the gold feeling cool against her burning tearstained face. “There, you now have color from your tears,” he says teasingly at last. Brienne hiccoughs and rolls her bleary eyes.

“Thank you, Kingslayer.”

“And thank you, wench.”


	3. A Dance

Jaime smiles almost wickedly. “Now would it be uncouth of me to ask you for a dance?” He rises from his chair and holds out his golden hand. “I did not get to dance at my s—at Tommen’s wedding. Sweet Cersei had drunk too much wine.” He looks wistful. He wanted to have that dance. I suppose I can oblige him—after all, besides us, there is no one else here. “As long as you don’t mind this hand,” he adds since she has been silent so long. “…If it does not disgust you.” Brienne rises.

“Ser Jaime, no part of you can disgust me anymore. Yes, I would be glad to dance.” He grins and bows, leading her onto the open portion of the pavilion floor.

“Excellent. Let’s see how fast you are on those feet without a sword in your hand! Peck, go find us some music.” The boy nodded and left the room. Brienne and Jaime stand in its center, her left hand covering his right, his left hand resting at the small of her back. As they wait for Peck to return, Brienne thinks back to the last time she had enjoyed herself while dancing. It was when Lord Renly came to our hall, and he was ever so good and gallant. I felt—graceful, dancing with him. …But he didn’t have the same wicked smile that Jaime has; the one that lights up his green eyes and makes them luminous. And he didn’t care for me in the way that Jaime does; he was simply being polite. And he dearly loved to dance, he said. These thoughts come unbidden and make her feel cold and sad. Renly had been a good man, an honourable man. Brienne had only wanted to love him, to serve and protect him—but now he is gone. Surely it is best, after a time, to move on? she muses. Yes, but how much time does one need? The maid of Tarth wonders now, stricken. Then she hears Jaime clear his throat and say, “You are pale, Brienne, yet the music has not even started yet. Do not worry, my lady—I promise my dancing is not that bad. …Or are you unsure about your own, perhaps?” She shakes her head.

“No, neither. I am sorry, ser. I was lost in memories of the last time I danced. It was in my father’s hall. With Lord Renly.” Jaime raises his eyebrows and then gives her a sharp nod.

“Understood. I will do my best not to tread upon Renly’s ghostly toes; though from what I have heard, my prowess in the ballroom can in no way match his.” As Peck returns with a lute player behind him, Brienne raises her eyebrows at Jaime and replies archly,

“We will see, won’t we?” Surprised by her attempt at teasing, the Kingslayer loudly laughs.

“Indeed we will. Was that an attempted JEST, wench? Why, Brienne, I’m proud of you!” The lute player plucks his first tune, a lively jig, and off they trot. “He probably expects to get a good laugh out of this,” Jaime grumbles. “The cripple dancing with the oaf. Well, I’m not giving one to the bastard.” The Kingslayer dances well and nimbly. Brienne finds herself smiling and whirling about as well as she had with Renly. The difference is that she is having a better time with Jaime because he is focused on her, not solely on the steps of the dance, and is as light on his feet as ever he was in battle. Peck and Pia have joined in the dance now as well, and Pod sits with Little Lew beside the lute player.

The player then starts in on a slower song, and Brienne expects to be uncomfortable and clumsy but is pleasantly surprised to find that Jaime is as good at dancing slow as he is fast. They have gone around the room once before she realizes the song playing is “The Rains of Castamere”:

‘For I have claws as well, my lord, as long and sharp as yours.’  
And so he said, and so he said, that lord of Castamere;  
But all the rains are falling still  
With no one left to hear.

Brienne thinks of her lady, alone and friendless at that terrible wedding—seeing her pride, her last son, the Young Wolf brutally murdered before her eyes; and Brienne had not been there to aid or protect her. She does not try to stop the song, nor does she run wailing from the hall like a weak woman; she bears it, shuddering and clutching the Kingslayer’s shoulder with her large right hand. And it does not take Jaime long to understand. He lifts his left hand from the small of her back and rubs her shoulders before cupping the back of her neck gently.

“Shh, shh, Brienne. It is done, and you could have done nothing.”

“No, Jaime,” she moans bitterly, raising her head sharply from his shoulder where she had briefly let it rest. “I could have BEEN there! To help her!” He is exasperated with her now.

“Because you were doing your DUTY by delivering me to King’s Landing by Catelyn Stark’s command; that is the reason you were not at the wedding. You did your JOB, Brienne!” She sighs heavily and gives him a sullen stare.

“And look how well that turned out—you lost your hand, I lost Sansa in her marriage to Tyrion, and Arya to…terror and death on the road and at Saltpans!” She lets out a loud sob.

“Brienne,” Jaime takes care to move back and grip her shoulders so that she must look at him directly and stares at her incredulously, “We do not know for sure that Arya Stark was there. And YOU were not there, yet you weep. You have done no wrong, and yet you wail.” She grits out, with tears cascading down her face and her teeth tightly clenched,

“Because I was not there is WHY I weep; and I have a right to wail because I have done nothing wrong—I have done nothing at all.” Jaime takes her chin in his hand and stares into her face with his earnest green eyes. Brienne finds herself drowning in those eyes until he speaks.

“I’m not saying you did RIGHT, but you did your duty as best you could. You always do your duty. You are honourable, Brienne of Tarth—the bravest and most loyal person I have met in Westeros. And probably the last one I will meet. And for that, no matter what anyone may think or say to the contrary, you are a knight. A true knight of the realm.” She raises her eyes to his, no longer weeping but her eyes are still full of tears.

“And yet I am a maid,” she replies bitterly. “A weak woman crying into your shoulder.” Jaime throws up his gold hand in exasperation.

“EVERYone cries!” He shouts, and then lowers his voice as his squires look at him askance. “Even my sweet sister—and my father, when my mother died.” That was probably the LAST time he had cried, Jaime thought. “It makes no matter who you are, and tears do not make you weak.” She studies him closely.

“Have YOU ever cried, Ser Jaime?”

“Yes, I have. Often.”

“Recently?” She wants to know. He chuckles mirthlessly.

“Not about what you might expect, but yes. I cried for lost innocence, Brienne. For the boy I used to be: the squire of Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning; a friend to Prince Rhaegar Targaryen; the sworn protector of King Aerys—before I knew what he was, before I saw Brandon Stark forced to kill, to cook his own father. I realized what I had—and what I’d never have—in Cersei. I saw Tyrion at age thirteen helping a crafter’s daughter to her feet upon a dark road, and I saw the pleasure I’d given him. The pleasure and the pain. I saw all my battles, won—mostly won—and lost; before I had my usefulness stripped away from me with a goat’s sharp dagger. And now ‘Kingslayer’ isn’t even the word that I hear to describe me. Now it’s ‘cripple’. I thought I could not live with Kingslayer, but…” he looks away over her shoulder, his jaw working and the apple in his throat bobbing as he chokes out his next words: “I find it even harder to live with cripple.” His eyes are full of so much pain as he looks back at her that they appear flat and empty, like broken pieces of colored glass from a sacked sept's smashed window, without life or light behind them. “And now I cannot even perform my duties in King’s Landing since my sweet sister sent me away.”

“But not because you are a cripple, Jaime,” Brienne instantly protested. “It was because you balked her and told her she was wrong in what she chose to do. And deep down she must know that you are in the right, but cannot bear to see it at present. You TOLD me of her reasons and justifications, remember?” Jaime sighs through his nose.

“Aye, that I did. And that is most of it, but my initial reason for balking her stemmed from my change of self, of mind and heart. I wish for honour. I could not—cannot—be to her what I had been before; and so she called me a cripple and asked if my manhood had been chopped off with my hand.” Jaime doesn’t know why he is telling her this, any more than he knew why he told her about Aerys, or first trusted her with his chance for honour, or why he was no longer in the king’s seat…. Perhaps because she just listens and looks at him with those beautiful blue eyes, the most attractive features of her face. That oxlike face he had teased her about so many times before—but it is fair to him now, as fair as the friend he sees behind it. As good as the woman that he now holds close in a dance. A thousand times the worth of whatever he had in his sister, and he wants nothing more than for this dealing with Riverrun and Edmure, this search for Sansa, the entire war; for all of it to just go away so he and Brienne can talk and dance and drink and be merry. But Jaime cannot make it so by wishing and he knows that. He feels HIMSELF starting to cry now, and that simply WILL NOT do.

So he blinks back tears manfully but Brienne nevertheless reaches out and touches his cheek in comfort and says softly, “It was beyond cruel what they did to you. Your prowess in battle—when you fought me you were so weak and chained, Jaime, but you were still the best fighter that I had ever faced or seen. And I would have been glad to see what you could do when at your full strength again.”

“But Vargo the Goat and his Bloody Mummers took that from me!” Jaime growls in a tone harsh and deadly.

“And they are burning in all seven hells for it, Jaime,” Brienne vows, her hand still cupping his cheek. She moves it down to squeeze his shoulder bracingly. “I promise you that.”


	4. A Kiss

Jaime raises his eyes to meet Brienne’s again, and he does not know what makes him say it, but

“Come closer, wench,” he whispers. She blinks at him and does nothing. “Brienne,” he smiles and amends. “Come closer, please.” She does, leaning in and tilting her face down, wondering what he wishes to say now.

“Yes, Jaime, ser?” she whispers back, and her parted pale pink lips ignite a spark of strong desire within Jaime Lannister. His hand still rests upon the back of her neck in order to comfort her, and thus it is so simple, it is nothing for him to draw her down the rest of the way and kiss her on the mouth.

Brienne’s eyes widen in utter astonishment. She does not try to back away but freezes completely rigid with her hand once more on Jaime’s face. Her wide blue eyes see his eyelashes flutter against his cheekbones as his eyes close in fervor. She doesn’t know what to do, but then his eyes snap back open and he pulls himself away, breathing hard—as if winded from fighting in a tourney when he was only giving her a kiss. 

“Forgive me,” Jaime says, wetting his lips with his tongue. “Brienne, I-I should not have done that to you without your leave.” His friend shakes her head.

“No, Jaime, indeed you should not.” He lowers his face in shame and perhaps a bit of hurt; but then she continues: “I should have been the one to do it to YOU.” And then pulls his face to hers and kisses him again.

Jaime wraps his arms back around her, and Brienne—propriety, prudence, and subtlety be damned—wraps her arms around his torso and (they had moved out of the centre and toward one side of the hall whilst dancing) puts him up against the wall, giving in to her desire. She hears Jaime gasp as she presses closer to him and he in turn is pressed against the stone wall behind him. He nips gently at her lips and his eyes rove over her face, that he cares about so much that he would gladly forgo all of his duties in the Kingsguard and the realm just to continue experiencing this kiss, this night, into eternity.


End file.
